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eBird, v.1895

Bar graphs are so much a part of birding publications nowadays, e- and paper, that it’s tempting to think they were always there. They weren’t: only in the past thirty years or so, and largely thanks to its use in the ABA/Lane guides, has the bar graph passed from a welcome novelty to an expected component of finding guides and local ornithologies.

That’s not to say, of course, that such things are entirely new.

Lynds Jones bar graphs

In 1895, having taken up his position at Oberlin, Lynds Jones decided to publish the results of five years’ “systematic study of bird migration” in central Iowa. Over five full pages, he arranged 110 species in the sequence of their usual springtime arrival:

In these charts an attempt has been made to indicate not only the dates of arrival and departure … but the time of arrival or departure, or both, of the bulk of each species. This is indicated by the heavier portion of the lines opposite the name of each species, the lighter portion indicating simply its presence….

Was Jones the first to publish bar graphs showing the seasonality and abundance of birds? Let me know if you have any earlier examples.

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Brookdale Park Birding

Hairy Woodpecker

A warm spring morning — at long last — in Brookdale Park, and Helen, Mollie, Gary, and I ran into a couple of arrivals during our leisurely walk around the edges of the park.

Blue-gray Gnatcatchers whined and buzzed here and there, and a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, even tinier, was the first of what should soon be the regulid onslaught.

The arrival of the kinglets usually coincides with the earliest warblers. Though I did have a couple of Myrtle Warblers early on, I was beginning to worry that that would be it for the morning. But no: a creeping sprite in the dead wood below the tennis courts turned into a glorious male Black-and-white Warbler, my first this spring in our area.

We were just as excited to see the local Red-tailed Hawks still in residence and acting decidedly broody. One bird slunk around quietly in a tall pine, as if hoping to get onto a nest without being seen, while the other soared overhead with a rat in its feet. I was impressed once again by what good hunters these birds are: I could look for rats all day and not find one. (Not complaining about that, of course.)

Winter isn’t that far behind us, though. White-throated Sparrows were just as abundant and as conspicuous as Chipping Sparrows, and a lone Slate-colored Junco was still lurking around the stream, perhaps taking her last bath before heading into the Adirondacks to breed.

Best of all, perhaps, was a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers quietly feeding together on large snags on the west side of the park. Fingers crossed that these birds stick around and breed: a little bit of wilderness in Bloomfield.

Join the Brookdale Conservancy and me for May bird walks in the park: schedule is here under “Upcoming Events.” 

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